My word of the year
has been chosen. The word is, “devotion.” Four years ago, I began this
tradition to replace the heap of unfulfilled resolutions from years past. The
tradition started with the word, “authentic,” followed by “beginnings.” When I realized the first two years began
with the first two letters of the alphabet, I continued the pattern.
Last year’s word,
“contentment,” didn’t live up to its potential. Contentment within the confines
of quarantine and isolation, amidst the turmoil of politics and in stemming worry
over a myriad of issues? Highly unlikely. This year the letter, “D” stumped me
for a time.
“Devotion” fits my
need to strive to be faithful to Christ, to family, to friends. A worthy goal I
hope to dig into a bit deeper, with God’s help. This word appears in the Bible
a handful of times, preceded by descriptive emphatic words such as
“wholehearted,” “sincere,” “undivided,” and “pure.”
I pray for a life
of devotion to be lived out this year. I pray to be loyal, loving and enthusiastic
in my passion for God, to allow God to fill me with His Spirit, to share His joy
as I share Christ with others, to commit to study the Word of God, and to humbly live out what He has called me
to do. Let it be so.
One of my favorite
sections of Scripture (along with a thousand others) is the prayer Paul penned
to the Ephesians. Let’s take it as a prayer for you and for me.
I pray that out of His glorious riches, He may
strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that
Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being
rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the Lord’s
holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of
Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled
to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do
immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to the power that is in
work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus through all
generations forever and ever! Amen
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